Creating

The first step to roleplaying is to create a believable character.

People in a game world are as complex as real people. Two people may both be knights, but their histories, their motivations, and their loyalties may lie in different places. Neither is wrong, and both may be well thought out. Bringing your character to life turns it from a set of numbers into a real (virtual) person. Just like how there is more to who you are than your IQ and how much you can lift, there is more to your character than its stats and skills. Try to be unique, without going overboard.

Background

What happened to your character before it entered the game. What is your past? Keep in mind that your past will most likely impact his/her current outlook on the world. To being to establish a past, ask yourself the following questions about your character.

• Where did I come from?
• How did I get from there to Chancy/Semdea?
• What happened from the time I was born until I got to Chancy/Semdea?
• How did I get my advantages/disadvantages?

A background, which can be brief, is required to gain rp points. Many clans and faiths also require a background for entry.

Personality

The next thing to do is try and establish your character's current personality. A personality is an outlook on life, and how a character faces situations. Does your character get stressed out? Is he calm and collected at all times? Is she introverted or extroverted? Are adverse situations viewed as challenges or obstacles, or do they cause you to feel defeated? Do you react logically or emotionally? All of these questions are based on your personality. Your character can be as much like you as you want, although it is often fun and challenging to play someone unlike your real personality. Personalities can evolve through play (See below), but rarely change suddenly. An individual personality can also be influenced by your race. An intellectual gnome is much more believable than an intellectual gandor.

A personality, which can be brief, is required to gain rp points. Many clans and faiths require a background for entry.

Motivation/Goals

What is your character trying to accomplish? While you might be trying to level, or questing, these aren't really role-playing goals. It is extremely unlikely that your character kills just to kill, which is the essence of leveling. Instead, something is driving him or her to adventure. This can be related to your past (The goblins killed my parents and I'm seeking closure), or to future desires (I will one day be a force that will be feared). A desire to gain political power, to be held in high regard, or to raise a family are all motivating factors. Motivation can also come from organizations that you belong to. You may be trying to further the goals of your religion or clan. (The goals of your religion or clan may need defining separately.)

Description

While not as important to role-playing as your personality or your background, your character's appearance is still an important part of who they are. It is also a way to allow other people to get a glimpse into who you are. You should have at least a passing knowledge of what your character looks like. Hair and eye color, height, weight, and body structure are good things to include in a description. Facial expressions, clothes, and anything else that may change from hour to hour should be left out.

A description, which can be brief, is required to gain rp points. Many clans and faiths require a background for entry.

Loyalties

At some point your character will be subjected to conflicts of interest. In some societies, a person's loyalties are expected to follow a predetermined order (God, King, and Country). For the most part, there is no pre-determined order for these things in Lensmoor, it is up to each character to decide where his or her loyalties lie. Deciding what your character's priorities are before the conflicts of interest happen will make it easier for you to play your character correctly, without criticism, and without waffling. The list of possible loyalties can include the following, which you should arrange in order of importance to your character: Alignment Clan Country Family Friends Race Religion Self

Note that alignment shows up in the list, and how it also plays a part in establishing the ordering of the list. Someone who is evil tends to have self high on the priority list. Someone who is good often puts self fairly low on their list. The loyalties of a chaotic character may be pretty random and possibly changes with time. A neutral character probably places self somewhere in the middle.

Actions

The second step to roleplaying takes place during the game. You must enter the mindset of your character. Rather than always doing what you, the player, feel is in your best interest, you should ask "What would my character do in this situation?" The answer to this question may not always be what you perceive to be the best option in terms of scoring points, but will lead to a character who seems realistic, and consistent. Consistency of character is more important than consistency of action. Doing what your character would do involves taking into account the character's goals, personality, and history. If an action goes against one of the character's stated long-term goals, they shouldn't do it.

Getting Started

Take the first ten levels to learn. Lensmoor is a huge world, and it has many unique elements. However, it's not counter-intuitive, just complex. Listen to the experienced players, ask questions on roleplaying, or the newbiehelp channel, and figure out what makes things tick. Don't embarrass yourself by diving in too quickly, but don't be afraid to explore. The mud is designed to make the learning process as painless as possible, as long as you're not acting like an idiot. Make friends, but don't force yourself on others. If you give people an excuse to incorporate you into their plots, they will. If you try and force yourself into the action, you'll end up being ignored.

Beware

You should pay attention to the following mistakes when roleplaying. Most importantly, never confuse In-Character actions with Out-Of-Character feelings. No one is really evil, and everyone is playing a game together. If their character and yours don't get along, it doesn't mean they hate you. Make sure you don't enable your character to be victimized unless you want this sort of plot. If something gets too much for you, tell the other people involved to back off a bit, that you're not comfortable with what is happening to your character.

Evolving

The final, and perhaps most difficult, aspect of roleplaying is the long term evolution of your character. Time passes regularly, and your character gets older. Are you going to maintain the same youthful outlook on life at 60 that you did when you were 18? The magic that may restore youth to your body doesn't work on your mind. After all, with the experiences that 200 years bring, although you may look 25 in body, the cynicism of age will have replaced the innocence you once had.

Some things to consider that may affect your character's personality as it ages:

• The death of loved ones
• Goals accomplished or abandoned
• Positions acquired or lost
• Injuries sustained or overcome
• Witnessing the cycle of life in action, the aging of one's children

What Roleplaying Isn't

It is easier to give examples of what isn't roleplaying than to try and define the boundaries. All of the following can be part of roleplaying but are not themselves roleplaying.

• Writing long stories, poetry, or prose. That is creative writing, not roleplay. Roleplaying is interactive.
• Interacting with non-player characters, or other characters you control.
• Roleplaying is about interaction. If you're playing by yourself, you may be telling a story, but you're not roleplaying. It is also against the rules on Lensmoor to have your characters interact.
• Creating characters just to do certain things. If you've already discussed the entire plot with the others in a group, you may be playing out the story you've written, but you're not really roleplaying.
• Repeating the same phrase/action over and over. This is a good way to reinforce your character in other people's minds, but it isn't roleplaying. Gossiping the same phrase when you log in or out will remind other players you're there, but it isn't roleplaying, and, if it never changes, it doesn't follow the principle of the evolving character.
• Grouping to quest, or kill monsters. This is interactive, but it isn't roleplaying. It is cooperative problem solving (in this case, the problem being the collection of experience or quest points.

Questions about your past

One way to fill in your character's history is to answer questions about his or her past. What follows are a list of questions that can be used to flesh out a characters personality and history.

• Where did you grow up?
• Was it a city, town, or rural area?
• How much have you dealt with the other races from your continent?
• Is your family still alive?
• If so, what are they doing now? If not, how did they die?
• What was your family life like?
• Why did you leave home?
• How old were you when you left?
• Why did you become an adventurer?
• Do you have some mentor or teacher who got you started?
• How do you feel about members of the other continent?
• How did you get your advantages/disadvantages?
• How much of your race's history do you know?

Cliches to avoid

In the fantasy genre, there are certain cliches that are overused. Strange as it may be to believe, not every king was abandoned to be raised by peasants, and not every child's parents were killed by some evil race. What follows is a list of cliches that appear too often in fantasy novels and MUDS, and should be avoided if you want to play a believable character.

• You were adopted by members of another race or nobility
• You were orphaned by insert race/clan/political force here and now have a burning hatred for them
• You're a cold-blooded loner assassin wearing all black
• You have a speech impediment that carries over into your typing
• You've got amnesia about your past
• You're an ominous wizard (esp. with a long beard)
• You're a barbarian who's not familiar with society
• You're a mysterious seductress

Suggestions on how to get involved

Getting involved in role-playing plots is much harder than just finding people to group with. You can't just barge into an established plot and expect everyone already in that plot to acknowledge you. Rather, you need to start by forming relationships of different types with other players. Plots and interaction stem from the inter-character relationships that exist in the game. Most of the following tips are focused on ways for a new character to find and form relationships with existing characters. Specifically, anyone with helper stars in the who list is a person willing to try and incorporate new players into some sort of plot or relationship.

• Offer to do legwork for people. Knights need squires and pages, courtiers need ladies in waiting, merchants need apprentices.
• Take a side. Ally yourself in some public dispute.
• Join a clan with beliefs similar to your character's.
• Make it known that you are looking for employment, and see who offers you work. This works better if you're looking for a specific type of employment.
• Quest with people, group with people. Get to know people as friends.

Especially look to see if there are any remorts in your level range. Remorts are fighting the same level mobs that you are, but have been in the game a lot longer, and so already have connections.

Sources of Inspiration

You can find sources of inspiration for characters just about anywhere you look. Movies, books, video games, comics, and history are full of interesting stories and people. Don't borrow too much from any one place though. You can't be Bilbo Baggins without everyone who has read The Hobbit know exactly who you're copying. Taking inspiration from a source is good, but outright copying is not.

Here are some ways people approach creating a new character:

• A former resident from a specific area in the game
• A character from a book or movie, but with a unique twist
• A character based around a desire to remort a specific race
• A character wanting to join a specific religion
• A specific concept like a swamp druid or a humble pantheist
• A challenging flaw or limitation.

Picking a Religion

Your character's choice of religion will both reflect the character and be in itself a source of role-playing.

Your first consideration should be alignment. Unlike the typical D&D system, Lensmoor has four distinct alignments: good, neutral, chaos, and evil. Imagine a character inside of a room and having to pick one of these four quadrants. They might be a little lawful-good or kind of chaotic-evil, but one of these concepts is going to win the fight over the other one. If you're a bit random but have underlying good intentions, good is going to win out. If you're more focused on your whims of the moment and less concerned with your overall good-leaning nature, chaos is the one for you.

Once you've picked an alignment, consider the wizlist and which deities are available to you. Read their helpfiles. Consider which of the motivating forces behind these faiths would appeal to your character. Once you have an idea of which faiths are plausible, it's time to ask around and learn about the philosophies and cultures of those respective religions. There's no rush. This is a big decision for your character so it should be taken seriously.

Race Specific Roleplaying Information

Check out some of the racial rp helpfiles for tips on playing specific races.

Special thanks to Vasana for his contributions to this page.